Scribble marks on the page, smudge marks on my face

I officially feel like a writer. The evenings see me sitting at my desk with the light of my lamp shining on my documentary script and my frustrated face. There are pencil and pen marks all over my revised script and every now and then I notice smudge marks on my cheek where I have been holding up my head as the hours slowly turn closer to 3am than I think. At this point, all I can say is that the creation and revision of a paper edit has officially become the hardest part of my documentary making process. 

I write, scratch out and re-write narration for the documentary. I feel moments of inspiration when I see the interview material from the women I have interviewed and there is hope! Here is a sneak peak of the opening of my doccie:

(Bikitsha): "When I was young I wanted to be in the military. I wanted maybe when there 100 years,when they talked about the people who defended the country, I wanted to be one of them."

(Zuma): When you join the defence force, it’s like a different ball game in a way... Most people have said that it’s a, being here it’s not just about getting employed, they refer to it as a calling because at the end of the day, you leave everything that you’ve known or you’re used to, and you sacrifice just for the well-being of the country... and it pays off. 

Actuality such as this has allowed my narration to be guided and moulded to where the documentary will go next. I like to think that Bikitsha and Zuma's words have the power to guide my thinking therefore the process of creating a paper edit has become a mutual process between myself and the five women. They may not realise it, but they are still helping me in this process even as I sit alone in the early hours. I feel that the content is quite sound and that these women have played their roles, but my work has only just begun.

This week has seen many tears surrounding this project. It has been a taxing week regarding this stage of the process but it is getting there. I have reverted to using a pencil to write out my narration as opposed to typing it and talking out loud to myself. I think this helps my focus and ensures that my narration is in line with how I actually talk, as well as hearing if it fits into the piece as a whole. I also have to keep reminding myself to yes, be an observer in the documentary, but to not place myself in it as having experienced things like the Fittest Soldier Competition. At least I am aware of these issues in the documentary and that allows me reflect and review my narration constantly. A good practice to adopt.

The next step of the process is to cut all the clips, place them in order and record my narration. By the end of the weekend, I will have a documentary about women in the sixth South African battalion and I will sip on a Hunters Dry in celebration.

Nadia 

A Boom in my head

Boom! That's the sound I'm sure you would have heard if you were standing close enough to my exploding brain. This week and last week saw me hit multiple mental blocks and not know how to get around them. Should I climb over, around or under them? Should I just duck for cover? So, in a bid to try and find solutions, I have decided to use this blog post as a brainstorming session.

One of the biggest frustrations I had to get over in the process, was that I was unable to conduct as many interviews as I had hoped for with the Morodi, Zuma, Windvogel, Bikitsha and Karabo. I was also unable to contact the only female mechanic at 6 SAI (that I had desperately wanted!) and I had to make peace with that. I had to make peace with the material I have and to realise that what I have is actually good. I realised this when I began to sift through my transcripts and look for the common threads that would hold my documentary together. So that was a good start to the paper edit stage.

These past few days I have been working on putting together my paper edit. A paper edit is the written version of what the final documentary will sound like. It gives you a chance to rearrange audio, ambiance and narration before you actually edit any of the audio. It is basically the script of the documentary. The paper edit process can also be the hardest (as I am finding it to be) as this is the point where you realise that you may need more interview material and the ambiance or wildtrack that you have may not suit the interview material you currently have. It is a painful realisation, but as mentioned before, I am making peace with these aspects. I am also in the process of having a love-hate relationship with the paper-edit/script but I have not put in all this effort for nothing.

I am trying to bring all these interviews together within the paper edit, trying to find themes that run through the interviews such as what families of these women had to say regarding their choices to enlist in the military, or what these women have to say about being women. Sometimes I find that while placing the actuality of the interviews in the rows of the paper edit table, I am taken aback by what they have to say. I still feel disheartened when looking at and listening to Captain Windvogel saying that women will never be equal to men, it's just how it is. Looking back at the transcription, she had also told me to stop being so trusting as she had learnt not to. When I asked her why? She didn't want to comment further. That made me quite bleak- the fact that she was unable to talk about something that had clearly changed her outlook on life and people, and then that something like that could not be placed in my paper-edit/script. 

So as I move things around in the paper-edit and the pencil markings increase after consultations with my lecturer, little explosions (writer's block mainly) continue to go off in my head. This is good I guess as it means I am trying and working hard with this content to make it work. It feels like this is the hardest phase of the documentary making process, but it is making me and my documentary all the better for it.

Nadia